Tag: snippets

It was a bit of a strange week, on some days I wrote a lot on some not at all. For those who (still) don’t know what it is, Camp NaNoWriMo is basically a smaller version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), in which you can set your own goal. For NaNoWriMo your goal is 50k, but for Camp NaNoWriMo I set my goal to 15k.

I have just finished the one-but-last chapter I was planning to write for Camp, and tomorrow and the day after I will write the last. It feels good to have so many words down already, but I feel I’m getting into the mid-month slump. Luckily, or sadly, depending on how you see it, I will only be participating for two more days. I’m going on vacation and won’t have my laptop with me.

I am really looking forward to going away and I plan on getting some more inspiration while I’m away and maybe add some minor storylines and add some character development, things like that! I think a small break from writing can really help me get inspired again! I will be writing (or at least try to) while I’m away, but that will be on paper. With an actual pen. Yeah, I guess I’ll see how that goes!

Week two of Camp NaNoWriMo has just ended. For those who don’t know what it is, Camp NaNoWriMo is basically a smaller version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), in which you can set your own goal. For NaNoWriMo your goal is 50k, but for Camp NaNoWriMo I set my goal to 15k. This is not a lot but I’ll be going on a vacation in the middle of July and won’t be able to write from then on.

I am currently in a small writing slump, I’m at a chapter and I don’t really know how to finish it. I’m sure I’ll figure it out once I get myself to actually write some more. Yesterday I wrote only 60 words and that’s a big disappointment for me. I can do better! I’m going to try to write at least 1000 words today but I’m pretty sure that won’t reach it. It’s already late afternoon, and I haven’t written more than 150 words… I’ll try though!

I found that I am really good at randomly improvising and adding in characters or storylines on a whim. Sometimes it just clicks and I write a thousand words about stuff that isn’t even in my outline. I created a character that I think will have quite an important role later in the story. I’ve also gotten to know my characters better, especially Noa. I really like how all the characters come alive on the paper.

Wow, just wow. It’s Wednesday evening as I’m writing this and I just finished my final words. I just went to the camp page and entered my final word count and just wow. I feel so incredibly good. I feel like dancing and screaming and crying and just everything at the same time, but first I’m going to finish this post.

So what happened since Sunday, I wrote wrote wrote and then wrote some more. When you’re reading this I’ll be camping (yeah for real this time), I’ll be away from Thursday until Sunday and writing is not really the easiest thing to do on a camping, so I decided to just go for it and write so much I won’t have to write much anymore when I was camping. Due to my horrible math skills (seriously writing is eating up my neurons, one by one, until I can no longer do math), I miscalculated and was done a lot earlier (as several thousand words and one evening earlier) than I thought.

My book is far from complete. There are a million things I have yet to add and I’m only about halfway through my story. I’ve added so much and wrote so much more words than I had planned, so it all stretched out a bit. I’m planning on continuing writing during May and June and maybe participate in Camp NaNoWriMo in July, although I will probably go on vacation and miss most of July. I’m planning to make it to 60k and wrap it up as my first draft. Yes, that’s right, there’s going to be a second draft. As I was writing, I was already thinking up things I wanted to add and relationships I wanted to elaborate on, characters I wanted to put more depth in, conversations I wanted to improve.

I’m going to do a more elaborate post on things I’ve learned from Camp NaNo later but this is just my initial thoughts on my process and finishing.

As I’m finished writing for this month (I don’t think I’ll be writing much for the rest of it), I’m thinking of a new name for my book. Currently, I’m using Drive On as my temporary title, but that was back when most of the book was about the road trip, now it’s a smaller part of the book (about half probably). The idea behind that title was that it was about continuing life after something horrible happened, keep on going, drive on. However, I kind of dislike it. I’ve got a list of titles I like but none of them are perfect, either I think they’re cheesy (this book is not cheesy) or not fitting.

It’s so weird to call it a book, like, I’m no writer, how can I call it a book, but on the other hand: I write. Which in conclusion means I’m a writer. I think, therefore I am, right? I write, therefore I’m a writer.

Snippets

You pass so many faces every day and yet you never stand still and wonder who these people are. They’re there, but they might as well not have been there at all. Ghosts, with a face and a name, but nothing more.

The city sparkles below us and the sky above us. “You know how stars that shine the brightest, burn up the fastest? I read about it online a while ago, it’s because of the heat of the fuel, I don’t really remember.” I trail off, “It reminds me of mom. Mom was probably the brightest star on the horizon.”

Random thought #1: this last one is actually the final lines in my draft at this moment and oh my gosh it’s the perfect way to end this project.

Random thought #2: I should call my novel: Bright Stars Burn Fast (or quickly? or swift? What do you think?).

Aesthetics

If you want to follow my aesthetics board on weheartit, you can find me here.